Cabinet reshuffle: Alphons Kannanthanam appointed a MoS in ministry of IT

NEW DELHI: Former KeralaIAS officer Alphons Kannanthanam, has been appointed as minister of state in the ministry of electronics and IT.

The 65 year old Kannanthanam is a former DDA commissioner and popularly known as Delhi’s Demolition man for his activist stance that led to removal of around 15,000 illegal buildings in the national capital.

In a major cabinet reshuffle today, the Narendra Modi government elevated four junior ministers to the Cabinet rank and inducted nine new faces. The new inductions include four former civil servants with the 1979 batch, Kerala cadre officer being one of them.

Apart from the charge of the ministry of electronics and IT, Kannanthanam has also been appointed as minister of State (Independent Charge) of the Ministry of Tourism.

Apart from the mandate of the Digital India campaign, the ministry of electronics and IT is also leading the digital payments campaign of the government.

He quit the IAS in 2006, with eight years of his tenure remianing and was elected a Member of the Legislative Assembly, from Kanjirappally in Kottayam District, Kerala. Kannanthanam is also a practicing advocate in the High court and the Supreme Court of India.

In the third revamp of his Cabinet, Modi gave India its first full time woman Defence Minister in form of Nirmala Sitharaman.

Dharmendra Pradhan, who belongs to the state of Odisha that is going to polls in 2018, has been given additional charge of Minister of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship apart from Petroleum and Natural Gas Ministry where he was there for quite some time. Ex-power minister been given the Railway Ministry Ex-power minister been given the Railway Ministry from Suresh Prabhu. Goyal will have additional charge of Ministry of Coal.

Prabhu, who resigned as Railway Minister following a series of train accidents, has been moved to Minister of Commerce and Industry.

Among the bureaucrats who have been inducted includes, Satya Pal Singh, 61, is a Lok Sabha MP from Baghpat, Uttar Pradesh. A 1980 batch Maharashtra cadre IPS officer, he retired as the Mumbai Police chief. A 1974-batch of Indian Foreign Service, Hardeep Singh Puri, 65, served as India's Permanent Representative to the United Nations from 2009 to 2013. Raj Kumar Singh, 64, is a former IAS officer of the 1975-batch Bihar cadre and a former Union home secretary. He is a member of the current Lok Sabha representing Arrah in Bihar.

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